Yao blocks Portland’s Ruben Patterson’s shot on Sunday night in Houston as the Rockets escaped blowing a game where they had an 18-point lead in the third quarter. The Rockets prevailed 81-80 to win their seventh game in a row, but it wasn’t pretty. Yao had 23 points and 8 rebounds to lead the Rockets in scoring. Click here for more photos from the game.

by John

SUNDAY, 2/13/05 – In every long win streak, you have to be lucky every once in awhile. That’s what the Rockets were on Sunday night. During the Rockets’ current 7-game winning streak–the longest in the league right now–the Rockets have faced close calls against Indiana, the Lakers, and Boston after blowing huge leads in the second half of each of those games. Sunday night against Portland had to be the biggest collapse of them all.

Up by 18 points in the third quarter, Houston let the Blazers back into the game, and even fell behind, but some fortuitous breaks for the Rockets gave them enough for an 81-80 victory.

After blowing the big lead, the Rockets fell behind 72-70, but then T-Mac threw up a prayer near the top of the three-point line, got fouled by Darius Miles, and the shot bounced high off the glass and through the net for the bucket, bringing Toyota Center to a roar! That was the first of several breaks to come for the Rockets.

Unfortunately, the shot was ruled as a two-pointer instead of a trey. And then T-Mac missed the penalty free throw. However, Juwan Howard was able to knock the rebound off a Blazer out of bounds on a controversial play, giving the Rockets possession and a chance to extend the lead to four points.

On the ensuing play, Yao eventually got the ball just inside the three-point line and appeared like he was going to take the shot, but the Blazer defense recovered. Surprisingly, Yao put the ball on the floor and took it to the rack for a baby hook shot. But Darius Miles went up high to block the shot, but he was ruled for goaltending. On top of that, the Rockets luck continued as the refs assessed a technical foul on Miles for holding on to the rim while elevating for the block. That allowed David Wesley to hit a technical free throw to give the Rockets a 75-72 lead with 1:54 remaining.

The Rockets held the Blazers on the next possession, and T-Mac was fouled afterwards. Unfortunately, T-Mac missed both free throws, leaving the door open for Portland.

Portland scored on the next possession, but the Rockets’ luck continued as the refs called Portland for a shot-clock violation. It was the right call: the replay showed the ball went in less than a second after the shot-clock buzzer had sounded.

The next time down the floor, Bob Sura responded by driving hard to the basket and scoring on a layup with 37.2 seconds remaining with the Rockets leading 77-72.

Seemingly with the game in hand, the fireworks were just beginning though.

Juwan Howard foolishly fouled Derek Anderson to stop the clock and put him on the line, and Anderson made both free throws to cut the lead to 77-74. Howard atoned for his mistake the next time down the floor by getting fouled with only two seconds on the shot clock. T-Mac was brilliant on the play, who was defended well at the three-point line and showed good judgment by not jacking up a desperate shot, and found Howard down low for the layup attempt.

Howard drained both free throws to put the Rockets up 79-74 with twelve seconds remaining. But the next trip down the floor, Portland’s Damon Stoudamire made a huge three-pointer with 10 seconds remaining, cutting the Blazer deficit to 79-77.

Once again, Howard was fouled on the inbounds play, and he converted with two huge free throws with 9.3 seconds remaining to give the Rockets an 81-77 lead.

With only three seconds remaining, Miles hit a huge three-pointer to draw Portland to 81-80 again. The Rockets were thinking when was Portland was going to go away?

The Blazers fouled David Wesley on the inbounds play, hoping Wesley would miss at least one foul shot to give them one last chance to hit a three-pointer to win it. Their gamble paid off.

Wesley, an 80% free throw shooter, stepped to the line with 2 seconds remaining and missed the first free throw. Not wanting to give Portland the chance to inbound the ball and improve their ability to get a decent shot (since they didn’t have any timeouts remaining), Wesley knew if he missed the second free throw, they would have to put up a tough shot from the backcourt to win it.

So Wesley missed the second free intentionally, and the ball caromed off the rim. Portland’s Stoudamire got the rebound, alluded Wesley and Yao to get to the half-court line and put up a long three-pointer that was perfectly on line and looked like it was going to go in, but THE SHOT JUST MISSED BY HITTING OFF THE BACK IRON, giving the Rockets the W.

Out of all the victories during their winning streak, this one was the closest. That’s saying something considering how the Rockets have held on several times for victories after blowing big leads.

Houston looked great starting about halfway into the first quarter, going on a 15-4 run to end the first quarter with a 23-15 lead. The offense looked fluid passing the ball for layups and dunks. Even Dikembe Mutombo showed a nice move driving to the basket and scoring on a reverse layup after a beautiful dish from T-Mac.

Yao’s accuracy from the floor continued, hitting 3-of-5 from the floor for 6 points, using his height advantage to score over Joel Pryzbilla.

The Houston defense ratcheted it up in the second quarter, holding to the Blazers to 13 points, with most of their scoring coming from the free throw line. By halftime, Houston was dominating with a 44-28 lead, holding the Blazers to 29% shooting. They also had a 29-18 rebounding advantage (9-3 offensive), a 15-2 lead in second-chance points, and a 20-10 advantage for points scored in the paint. Yao had 10 points on 5-of-7 shooting.

In the third quarter when Yao scored on a sweet reverse layup on Theo Ratliff, the Rockets had a 52-34 lead with 7:03 remaining in the quarter and appeared to be on cruise control.

But then Portland went on a 15-2 run to cut the deficit to four points, and that’s when the fun described earlier really started to happen.

T-Mac had a so-so game, scoring 18 points, but missing 13-of-19 from the field. Down the stretch when it really counted, in an extreme rarity he also missed four free throws in a row.

Juwan Howard continued his impressive play, getting a double-double by grabbing 11 boards and scoring 17, including hitting those key free throws late in the game to retain Houston’s lead.

Although Bob Sura scored only four points, he led the team in rebounds (12) and had 8 assists.

And Yao continued his torrid shooting, hitting 10-of-18 to lead the team in scoring (23) and grabbing eight boards. I love how Yao is really playing large and using his size advantage to dominate smaller guys. And opponents cannot afford to double-team his as much since the Rockets now have guys who can hit three-pointers and long jump shots. That’s giving Yao a much easier time down low.

The Rockets look to extend their winning streak to 8 games in a row on Tuesday night against the Washington Wizards. That game scares me because of the points those guys can put on the scoreboard. But I said something similar before the Rockets played the Bulls last week, and I was wrong. If the Rockets play defense like they did in the third quarter against the Blazers, that nice win streak might end and they will be headed into the All Star break on a down note.

To read the Houston Chronicle’s post-game analysis, click here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 13th, 2005 at 11:57 pm and is filed under vs. Portland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.